FYI: August 2003

Caught
on CameraIf
you prefer privacy in the bathroom, beware of the air freshener with bundles
of wires behind it.

In May a woman taking
a fancy dinner cruise around Manhattan noticed an odd electronic contraption
hidden by an air freshener in the ladies room. Afraid that it might be
an explosive device, she quickly found the ship’s engineer. It turns
out the suspicious gadget wasn’t a bomb planted by terrorists, but
a hidden camera planted by the disc jockey who was hired for the cruise,
according to The New York Times.

The DJ had been watching
live images from the camera all night at his DJ stand while playing music,
according to investigators. The boat, named Cornucopia Princess, had departed
from Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and was hosting a party for the staff of
a local federal credit union.

At approximately 9 p.m.,
when the unidentified woman summoned the ship’s engineer, the DJ
must have noticed that his secret had been discovered. While the engineer
dismantled the air freshener and inspected the mysterious instrument,
the DJ rushed to the bathroom, grabbed the device from the engineer’s
hand, and tossed it overboard, according to the Times. Though the crew
did not know what the device was at the time, they immediately contacted
the U.S. Coast Guard and the New York City Police Department, which sent
a harbor patrol boat to escort the ship to a pier in Brooklyn.

All 150 passengers and
46 crew members had to disembark, while law enforcement officers combed
the ship. Though the DJ was placed under arrest and no other illegal devices
were discovered, the party’s spirit had, needless to say, died out.

At presstime, the DJ,
whose name was being withheld by police, had not yet been formally charged.

250The
number of former New York City subway cars that the state of New Jersey
plans to sink off its coast to form an artificial reef.

Things
We Like
Whether you need a little extra practice before docking that new 50-footer
you just bought or you have some time to kill at the office, check out
this free, online simulator: http://spot.pcc.edu/~mtrigobo/docksim/index.html.
Adjust the wind and current settings, then try to ease your virtual cruiser
into the slip.

The graphics are simple,
but the challenge can be somewhat daunting. It took PMY’s Capt.
Patrick Sciacca four attempts to dock at the innermost slip without “crashing,”;
and publisher Dave Branch reportedly hit a submerged object. Can you do
better?